Lightning
Lightning was a competitor robot that fought in Series 7 of Robot Wars as well as the Tag Team Terror in the second series of Robot Wars Extreme. It reached the Heat Final in Series 7, losing to Gravity, and the second round of the Extreme 2 Tag Team Terror alongside The Steel Avenger, losing to eventual champions Bulldog Breed and Robochicken. Lightning was the brainchild of Laurie Calvert, who came up with the idea for the robot after seeing Cassius self-right in Series 2. It took the team several years to gather the sufficient funds to assemble Lightning, with the project costing £4000 and the robot receiving to £2500 worth of parts. Previous versions of Lightning failed to qualify for Series 5 and 6 - being defeated by Razer and Barbaric Response, respectively. Lightning R2 appeared on the Discovery Channel programme, Robots Revenge, which the first version of Killer Carrot 2 also appeared on. Team Lightning expressed interest in applying for Series 8 of Robot Wars with an upgraded version of Lightning. However, the team did not have enough time to acquire sponsors or make the necessary upgrades, forcing Lightning to pull out. Robot History Extreme 2 Lightning's first appearance was in a Tag Team partnership with The Steel Avenger. Its first round was in a battle against returning robots Nasty Humphrey and Stinger. Lightning tussled with Nasty Humphrey in the opening seconds, before attacking Stinger once. The Steel Avenger tagged out and put up a fight against Stinger, but ended up pitting Stinger and itself. Lightning was left to fight Nasty Humphrey alone, and it managed to get Nasty Humphrey tipped against the side wall where it took damage from Mr. Psycho. The time ran out, and Lightning had scored enough points to progress through to the next round. Lightning was thrown onto its back by Bulldog Breed almost instantly. The impact, however, knocked out a receiver battery and rendered Lightning immobile. Bulldog Breed tried to flip Lightning out of the arena, but the large flat shape of Lightning made it very hard to get out. Lightning was left on its back with its wheels spinning, and was eliminated from the Tag Team Terror when The Steel Avenger finally succumbed to Robochicken's flipper. Series 7 Lightning shot off from the start and quickly pinned newcomers Herbinator against the side wall. Lightning took damage from veterans The Alien, but when the spinning hammer robot broke down, Lightning was assured a place in the next round. However, 13 Black continued to attack, as John Denny wished to score more aggression points, so Lightning pinned the seeded robot against the side wall, but in the end they both went through. Lightning went on to fight Thor who came third in the Extreme 2 New Blood Championship. Lightning avoided Thor's hammer repeatedly, able to predict the weapon use of its opponent. Lightning opening the pit, and trapped Thor in the CPZ. However, Lightning then reversed onto Thor's wedge, which had come to a standstill, but that didn't stop Lightning taking a few hits from Thor's hammer. Both robots were immobile, so the House Robots and Refbot pushed both robots free. With battle recommenced, Lightning slid beneath Thor and flipped it sideways into the open pit. This put Lightning against the formidable Dutch machine Gravity in the Heat Final. Already at a disadvantage in terms of flipper power, Lightning was further damaged by a flat tyre. Gravity threw Lightning into the air, with Lightning swiftly self-righting and sliding beneath Gravity, but failing to bring its own flipper into effect. The two robots then rammed into each other in a pushing match, before Gravity flipped Lightning into the air once more, causing something to break inside Lightning, and the valiant machine fell so Refbot counted it out. Its motionless form was joined by Shunt and Dead Metal, who Gravity quickly dispatched as well. Live Events Lightning also competed on the live circuit for a while, fighting several famous robots such as Series 3-4 champion Chaos 2 and Series 6 champion Tornado. In August 2002, Lightning took on Iron-Awe at an event in Yeovil. Notably, it defeated Tornado in one battle at the Lakeside Robot Zone charity event, organised by the late Steve Merrill, in 2004. Despite being fully operational, Lightning has since been retired, and now occasionally appears as a static exhibit at live events. Results Wins/Losses *Wins: 5 *Losses: 2 Category:Competitors Category:UK Robot Wars Competitors Category:Heavyweight Robots Category:British Robots Category:Robots from Essex Category:Robots with more wins than losses Category:Live Event Competitors Category:Robots with Mascots Category:Robots named after weather Category:Robot Wars Tag Team competitors Category:Robot Wars Heat Finalists Category:Charity Event competitors Category:Robots armed with flipping weapons Category:Robots with rear-hinged true flippers Category:Robots with Spikes Category:Robots that lost in Qualifiers Category:Robot Wars Series 5 Non-Qualifiers Category:Robot Wars Series 6 Non-Qualifiers Category:Robot Wars Extreme 2 Robots Category:Robot Wars Series 7 Robots